Student earns associate's degree while in high school
Mar. 18—Sutter Union High School senior Emma Cucchi first started taking Yuba College courses her freshman year.
Cucchi said she took a computer class that was required at the high school and took the equivalent at the college, and a sign language course as her second language.
"I just really enjoyed taking those two ... and I just decided to take more," Cucchi said.
In December, she graduated from Yuba College with her associate's degree and will graduate from Sutter Union High School in June.
This semester she's continuing to take classes at the college, Cucchi said she is taking beginning art, beginning photography and beginning coding.
"I feel like once I really got started, I was motivated to be able to have my associate's degree," Cucchi said. "I started the train so I thought I might as well finish it out."
She mostly took college classes online, which allowed her to do the work after she was done with her high school classes for the day, along with some night and summer classes.
Cucchi is ranked at the top of her high school class — with a 4.72 academic GPA at Sutter High, and she has a 4.0 at Yuba College.
"We're super proud and impressed with her accomplishments and work ethic," said Erin Cucchi, Emma's mother. "A lot of schools have kids who take college classes and try to get some credits done and she was doing the same thing. It evolved at a certain point ... We were super supportive of her wanting to do that and getting a jump start on her college education."
Francesca Ehrk, director of guidance at Sutter Union High School, said Emma is the first four-year Sutter High student to earn their AA while also attending high school — she said she has only seen one other student do so and she was a transfer student.
She said Emma worked with the high school on her schedule and that her family gave her a lot of support throughout.
"We're so proud of her," Ehrk said. "...She has wonderful citizenship and character, she's a leader ... wherever she goes she's going to be successful."
Emma said her advice for others who take college courses or hope to earn an associate's degree while in high school is to keep going with it and to keep pushing through.
"You can still have a good high school time and be active in things — I'm also involved in 4-H and (Future Farmers of America)," Emma said.
She said spreading out her workload by taking summer classes as well as during the school year has allowed her to focus on her classes but also do fun things.
Emma said she's still waiting to hear back from a couple of colleges but next school year she plans to go to a university to study computer science and graphic design.
"I'm very proud of myself that I was able to get all the way through," Emma said.
